She's tall, she's blond, she's smart--and now that she's royalty, Christina Leanne Farrell won't have to walk. The 17-year-old senior was named the 81st Rose Queen on Tuesday and will reign over the last Rose Parade of the 20th century atop a float. Last year, Farrell walked the parade in the Arcadia High School marching band. "I'm just really shocked. It's so overwhelming," said Farrell, a National Honor Society member. "I first decided I wanted to be queen when I was 5."

To the annals of volunteerism, along with the names of Betsy Ross and Mother Teresa, add Maggie the cat. In a modest package of gray and black fur, Maggie is the last line of defense in protecting animal lovers from unwisely mixing species. In what may be a unique role, the courageous feline is the Pasadena Humane Society's "dog tester." Her job is to ensure domestic peace when adopted dogs come to homes where their traditional enemies already live.

During the Great Depression, when the average house and lot cost around $5,000 in Pasadena, Caltech aerospace expert Clark Blanchard Millikan lived in a grand home that cost more than five times that amount. Millikan, internationally recognized for his work in aerodynamics and the son of Nobel Prize winner and Caltech President Robert A. Millikan, married well. His bride, Helen Staats, was the daughter of a wealthy real estate investor who provided the original 3.

The family of an East Los Angeles man shot and killed last month by a Pasadena policeman has filed a claim against that city seeking $10 million in damages. Officer Steve Arcand shot Javier Quezada Jr., 22, several times Jan. 23 in the parking lot of Las Encinas Hospital after Quezada allegedly charged at the policeman with a pair of 9-inch scissors.

Three young women were found shot to death early Friday in a home in the Annandale section of Pasadena, an affluent neighborhood overlooking the Rose Bowl. Police discovered the bodies of the victims--two of them 18, one 17--in the pool house of a home on Fairlawn Way, on a ridge above Annandale Country Club. Officers had received an anonymous call asking them to check on the welfare of residents at the house, said Lt. Van B. Anthony. Police identified three teen-age boys as suspects.

A probe by Pasadena officials into allegations of racial discrimination at King's Villages housing project found that black applicants were rejected and black tenants evicted in greater numbers than Latino applicants and tenants. But the report did not determine whether the actions were a result of racial discrimination, as claimed by the King's Villages Tenants Union Organization. The group complained to city directors last April that after Thomas Pottmeyer & Co.

There was nothing original about the teacher's observations: At Pasadena's Muir High School -- as on many urban campuses -- black students are cited more often than others for disciplinary problems. And they score worse than others on standardized exams. What was shocking was how the white teacher argued -- when he connected the dots with his public proclamation -- that unruly black students were responsible for his school's failure to make the grade.

The emergency room of Huntington Hospital was briefly evacuated Saturday after a chemical leak, officials said. A sensor alerted hospital officials to high levels of the odorless gas ethylene oxide in the emergency room about 4:15 p.m., spokeswoman Andrea Stradling said. The gas is used to sterilize surgical equipment. A hazardous materials team from the Pasadena Fire Department responded, but the gas had dissipated by the time it arrived, Stradling said.

Myron Hunt designed this grand Colonial Revival villa in 1916 in Pasadena's Oak Knoll neighborhood, described in The Times' stories of the day as "the Crown City's beautiful and fashionable suburb," replete with paved streets and "ornamental electric lights on classic bronze pillars." Even if you don't recognize the Pasadena architect's name, you've probably seen or been in one of his many local landmarks.

What began as a neighborhood concern about congestion high above the Rose Bowl during major events has become an issue in the corridors of City Hall, Congress and the Federal Aviation Administration. City officials, state lawmakers and Pasadena's congressman are lobbying the FAA to severely restrict planes above major Rose Bowl events such as the Women's World Cup Final, which could draw a capacity crowd of 94,000 Saturday.